Welcome to the 66th edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 65 right here. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
Age has taken much from me when it comes to music. It’s harder to keep up with, harder to wrangle and harder to develop concrete opinions or even feel strongly about anymore. (Bon Iver and The National are still brutally boring, though). The first time I ever had a name-searching band pop up in my mentions was when I saw Givers (I was bored and tweeted about it) open for Ra Ra Riot in November 2010:
and there was a regretful beef with Black Tambourine in 2012 over crowdfunding. (I was right about Givers, probably wrong about Kickstarter as a means for producing music, especially since I have a Cloud Nothings subscription now, but that’s a different conversation for a different day).
In hindsight, I had a very late 2000s/early 2010s blogging style/tone that was obnoxious and annoying, and I’ve probably done a good job distancing myself from it, mostly because there are too many things to care about at this point, and music isn’t really one of them anymore. It’s been more than two months since I seriously tried to see what was out there.
But the one thing that I am the most frustrated at aging for robbing me of is the ability to complete a tripleheader — not that there are many opportunities for that to happen these days, I don’t think.
Last Friday marked the 10-year anniversary of one of the more absurd triples I ever pulled off during my show-going heyday in 2010-13, and I’ve been thinking a lot about whether something like it is even really possible anymore (I’m sure it is in New York, but it would just be different).
Here’s what me, Anna and Molly P. did in one Brooklyn Saturday:
The Feelies, Real Estate, Times New Vikings at Prospect Park
Andrew Cedermark at Shea Stadium
Pictureplane at 285 Kent
Anna and I also watched Death From Above 1979 at the Williamsburg Waterfront from a distance the night before, and the next night, we went to see Real Estate and Dent May at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J. It was really just a Normal 2011 Weekend.
It was the hottest weekend of the summer. We got free coconut water samples when we were leaving Prospect Park, and I took a big gulp of mine and immediately spit it out. I’m still not on the coconut water train. I don’t remember much from The Feelies set, and I probably still can’t name a Feelies song. Real Estate was teasing out songs like “Green Aisles” and “It’s Real” before Days dropped a couple months later. Dent May was there.
When we got to Shea Stadium, the doorman — the frontman for a prominent indie rock act that is doing a belated 10-year anniversary tour in 2021 for an album that came out in 2010 — tried to charge us $7 per person even though Andrew Cedermark was the only act left after Dustin Wong, Family Trees (vaguely familiar?) and Zombie Orgy(???), and Anna said, “Well, why not just $7 for the three of us?” and he let us in.
Andrew Cedermark’s Moon Deluxe is one of my favorite early 2010s records, and his Fort/da last year was one of my favorite 2020 records. He ripped that set. We spent a bunch of time on the balcony at Shea Stadium. I sent A Formative Text Message while we were out there. Jeffery told us to come to 285 Kent.
Real Brooklyn historians know when the a/c went in at 285 Kent, but it was certainly not summer 2011. I sweated, a lot. I remember a mess of lights and loud noises and bodies moving during Pictureplane’s set. In all of my music listening, I was never cognizant of Pictureplane while he was A Thing, but it is humorous to see his name pop up and be like, Oh wait, I did see him, and it was the hottest night of my life.
My phone said it was still 95 degrees or 98 degrees or something absurd in Brooklyn, but when we spilled out of 285 onto Kent Ave., I got chilly. On the way out, I grabbed a slice of watermelon — who knows if I paid for it or not or what — and when I bit into it, it was hot. Who knows what time it was. It was a truly unhinged experience.
If I tried to do all of this again, it would probably kill me. I would try to do it again, though. I’m scrolling through my shows spreadsheet right now, and there are a couple other triples on there — including one I’ll write about in October — but none really have the same gravity as this one. It was three weeks into July, so summer was collapsing onto itself. It was the hottest weekend of the year. Real Estate was having its moment. Shea Stadium and 285 Kent were still part of the epicenter of “DIY” or whatever was going on. There was a certain weight to that weekend that only a 19-year-old can embrace or recognize. It was one for the books.
Some content I wrote this week
Penn State football season starts in five weeks with a game at Wisconsin. I’m excited.
I did a podcast and people commented on my hair on YouTube.
The son of a former Green Bay Packers player I was a big fan of growing up decided he’s going to Penn State. Time passes, though…
Talked to a coach about why a rising high school sophomore is so good.
Talked to a rising high school senior about why he would go to Penn State without ever visiting State College.
Wrote about a Michigan Man.
Also wrote about a Rutgers Man.
Penn State got one of its best recruits ever this week.
Lessons learned from a pandemic season.
Had less than 90 minutes notice to be at an event with the governor on the morning of my first day back from vacation.
Some content I listened to this week
Here is the 062k21 playlist:
The 072k21 playlist is coming along nicely:
There’s a lot of quality songs on this playlist so far this month and a couple I’ve been listening to on repeat. Bonny Doon helped soundtrack the Michigan portion of vacation earlier this month, and then me and Anastassia drove around New York state listening to Widowspeak and it was just generally pleasant. I’m finally getting into Doja Cat? I guess? It’s probably time for a new Nilüfer Yanya album, and the newest Indigo De Souza song is really, really good.
Also, I need to jump into my time machine to tell my 2011 self that a decade later, Rebecca Black will name check Sky Ferreira:
The episode of The Distraction with Drew Magary and A.J. Daulerio was very good:
Some content I read this week
Wright Thompson on Emmett Till in The Atlantic.
Helena Fitzgerald on couches and homes:
But the verbal shorthand that trades “apartment” for “house” insists none of that is what makes a house a house. Instead, a house is the simple fact of living somewhere, going back to the same place every day, falling asleep in the same room every night, making dinner and making coffee in the morning, throwing parties and sleepily watching television, having friends over, accumulating furniture and pets and plants. A house is the place where you make a life, where you repeat patterns and accumulate habits. Get home safe, we say when people leave at the end of the night, or the shorter version, simply safe home. A house is where you feel at home, and a home is a place where you are safe when you’re there.
Good Hell World.
“I just learned I only have months to live. This is what I want to say.”
Eli Saslow for The Washington Post on real estate in Idaho.
The prospect of what happens when/if Spotify goes under (or something similar) makes me uneasy.
The story behind one of the greatest songs in musical history.
Ashley Feinberg on Donald Rumsfeld’s memos.
Kyle Chayka on the “very online novel” with a focus on Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This.
Eric Alper really does haunt me.
Am I Mountain Goats guy? Not really. Did I enjoy these two interviews with John Darnielle? Yes.
Running has become so important to me. It’s become such a big focus for me that, even in the studio, I can find a better balance. Here's the thing, if you grow up hearing about writing and hearing about making art and having these ideas sold to you about the monomania that necessarily goes with writing or making art…the idea is leading a balanced life and making art, they feel like they have to be at odds. But actually, that's a pretty toxic myth. You can actually be healthy and make even better stuff.
It does feel sort of like a paradox, because you make some of your best art from pain. We all know this, but that does not mean that you have to be suffering to make it. It just means you have to locate your suffering, whatever it was, and transform it. Actually, the better shape you're in, the more angles you're going to be able to get on that.
I'm not the only artist who's been sort of afraid of getting healthy, afraid that maybe it would take the muse away. I've been talking shit about this tendency my whole career, but I don't think I actually have really shed myself of it until the last 10 years or so.
Hanif Abdurraqib on Friday Night Lights and photographs.
The Ringer on the Good Internet.
Some other content I saw or thought about this week
Do you remember when summer 2019 was The Year of the Aperol Spritz? That was kind of crazy. Feel like you don’t hear too much about the spritz anymore. Did The New York Times kill it? Anyway, I finally got negroni supplies this week, and it was a good choice.
Books I have read since the last one of these newsletters more than a month ago:
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
10:04 by Ben Lerner
God Spare The Girls by Kelsey McKinney
Pop Song by Larissa Pham
How Lucky by Will Leitch
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Currently reading: A Little Devil In America by Hanif Abdurraqib
I enjoyed all of them, though I will say that No One Is Talking About This and How Lucky had unexpected twists into discussions of grief that I was not really prepared for, and that was affecting. I loved 10:04. God Spare The Girls was entertaining. Pop Song had some inspirational places. And I can now tell which writers are explicitly influenced by Bourdain, which is another discussion for another day.
Thank you for reading the 66th edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
Cigarette advertisement country
Wild and perfect, but lacking something
In Manitoba, they called it boring
At night, we hum to Canada's snoring
Westbound taken, exiled Texan
From a former Dutch trade encampment
Former slave quarters tucked by the alley
Serf population too high to tally
—D.G.